035167/EU XXV. GP Eingelangt am 05/08/14

Council of the EuropeanE Union Brussels, 5 August 2014

12365/14

INST 375

COVER NOTE from: Ms Metka IPAVIC, Deputy Permanent Representative of to the European Union received on: 1 August 2014 to: Mr Uwe CORSEPIUS, Secretary-General of the Council of the European Union Subject: Nomination of Ms Tanja FAJON, Mr Karl ERJAVEC and Ms Alenka BRATUŠEK as Members of the European Commission

Delegations will find attached a letter from Ms Metka IPAVIC, Deputy Permanent Representative of Slovenia to the European Union on the above subject.

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12365/14 KS/lo 1 DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at ANNEX

12365/14 KS/lo 2 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at 12365/14 KS/lo 3 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at 12365/14 KS/lo 4 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at Curriculum Vitae Tanja FAJON

Tanja Fajon (born on 9 May 1971 in Ljubljana, Slovenia) is a Member of the European Parliament, Vice-Chair and Member of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) and a Vice-Chair Woman of Social Democrats of Slovenia (SD).

Tanja Fajon graduated in journalism at the (Faculty of Political and Social Sciences). She also holds a Master Degree in International Politics from the College of Interdisciplinary Studies in Paris.

She worked as a journalist for Radio Glas Ljubljana (1991 and 1995), daily newspaper Republika (1993) and public broadcaster Radio Television Slovenia (1995-2009) and has been mainly engaged with foreign and European politics. In 2001, she became a journalist correspondent for Radio Television Slovenia in Brussels and kept this foreign post for almost 8 years. Her main focus were the accession negotiations of Slovenia towards the European Union (EU), the later membership of the country and all EU policies related issues. She was also a reporter for American network CNN (1995-2001).

As a journalist, she developed a wide range of professional skills in covering various issues – from politics, to economy and business – in different EU states, particularly in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and France. Mrs Fajon is also the author of several documentaries, among them Rise of the extreme right in Europe, Human tragedies at the doorstep of Europe and Constitution of the European Union.

Mrs Fajon was for the first time elected to the European parliament in 2009. In the past term she was a full Member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) as well as Special Committee on Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM) where she acted between March 2012 and October 2013 as a coordinator and S&D Group's spokesperson. She was also a substitute Member in the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET).

12365/14 KS/lo 5 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at Mrs Fajon has been actively involved in the politics of the Western Balkans, as a substitute Member of the Delegation for relations with Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo and as the European Parliament's rapporteur on visa liberalization for the Western Balkans. Mrs Fajon made an important contribution to the life of citizens of the Western Balkans countries as they can finally travel freely to the European Union countries. In 2010 she received an honorary doctorate from the American University in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Mrs Fajon was a Vice Chair-Woman of the European Parliament delegation with Croatia until Croatia's membership in the EU and then served as a full Member of the EU - USA delegation. She was also a Vice Chair-Woman of the European Parliament's Intergroup on Media, responsible for monitoring press freedom in Europe. As of 9 January 2014 Mrs Fajon also serves as a European Parliament's rapporteur on visa liberalization for the Republic of Moldova.

On 25 May 2014 she was re-elected as a Member of the European Parliament in the European Elections for her second term. Enjoying wide support among Slovenian citizens, Mrs Fajon became the first women in the Slovenian history who won her mandate with preferential votes. In June 2014 she was elected Vice President of S&D Group in the European Parliament. She again serves as a full Member of LIBE Committee as well as the Delegation for relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo and as a Substitute Member of AFET Committee and the Delegation to the EU-Moldova Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.

Tanja Fajon speaks English, French, German and Serbo-Croatian.

Tanja Fajon is married to a German journalist Veit-Ulrich Braun.

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12365/14 KS/lo 6 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at Curriculum Vitae Karl Viktor ERJAVEC

Born on 21 June 1960 in Aiseau, Belgium.

Until he was 11 years old, he lived and attended schools in Belgium. He then moved to Kranj, Slovenia, where he attended Kranj Grammar School and graduated from Ljubljana Law School in 1985.

Until 1990, he worked in the private sector.

In 1990, he became a member of the Executive Council of Kranj City Council as a councillor for general and legal affairs.

Between 1995 and 2000, he was a director of the specialist service of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman of the Republic of Slovenia and Head of the Cabinet of the Human Rights Ombudsman. He participated at various international conferences on the field of human rights.

Between 2001 and 2004, he was appointed as State Secretary for Judicial Administration at the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Slovenia. He worked intensively on the harmonisation of the national judicial system as well as with the legal system of the European Union (acquis). He actively participated at the Council of Ministers for Justice and Internal Affairs of the European Union.

In 2004, he was appointed as minister for defence of the Republic of Slovenia. He held that appointment until 2008. In 2006, he chaired a NATO ministerial meeting in Portorož, Slovenia.

In the first half of 2008, when Slovenia held the EU Presidency, he was chairing the meeting of the EU defence ministers and, together with the European Commission, he was leading European defence policies. He attended several ministerial meeting across the world, and he visited all the military missions in which Slovenian Army members were participating, from Afghanistan to Iraq.

12365/14 KS/lo 7 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at As a minister for defence, he devoted special attention for Western Balkans, because Slovenian Armed Forces were participating in Operation ALTHEA in Bosnia and Hercegovina and KFOR in Kosovo. In April 2008, he participated at the NATO Summit in Bucharest, Romania.

At the end of 2008, Karl Erjavec became Minister for the Environment and Spatial Planning of the Republic of Slovenia. He was also the negotiation at the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in December 2009, and he presided over the Alpine Convention. He also led and successfully concluded Slovenia’s negotiations for accession to OECD on the field of environment.

In February 2012, he was appointed as Vice President of the and Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Slovenia. As the Slovenian minister for foreign affairs, he attended UN General Assembly Sessions in New York, the NATO Summit in Chicago in 2013, and participated at the OECD ministerial meeting as its vice-chairman in 2014.

One of his most important priorities as a minister of foreign affairs was solving the open questions between Slovenia and the Republic of Croatia. In connection with the arbitration agreement regarding the border with Croatia, he appeared before the Court of Arbitration in The Hague. A significant obstacle to the entry of Croatia into the EU was a dispute in connection with the Ljubljanska Banka, which was successfully resolved with a compromise solution in the form of a memorandum.

As Minister for Foreign Affairs, he paid particular attention to the Western Balkans. His letter regarding aspects of possible solutions for Bosnia and Herzegovina was very well-received. He actively supported the Western Balkan aspirations to join Euro-Atlantic structures. In the context of these efforts, the Brdo process has played an important role, as has a number of bilateral meetings that he has had with all the ministers of the Western Balkans. He also hosted two Bled Strategic Forums, at which the Western Balkans were among the most central discussion topics.

In March 2014, Karl Erjavec hosted an international seminar on mediation in the Mediterranean, at which the experience of peaceful settlement of disputes in the Western Balkans and the wider Mediterranean region was further discussed.

12365/14 KS/lo 8 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at Since 2005, he has been the president of the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS). In this role, he has been a cabinet member of various Slovenian governments, both centre-left and centre-right.

He is married and has two daughters; they live in Naklo, Slovenia.

He speaks French, English, Croatian/Serbian and German.

He is the author of numerous articles on the protection of fundamental human rights, on the functioning of the judicial system, and security issues. He often lectures at professional seminars, conferences, consultations, meetings, forums, domestically and internationally.

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12365/14 KS/lo 9 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at Curriculum Vitae Alenka BRATUŠEK

Alenka Bratušek was elected Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia on 27 February 2013 and thus became the first woman at the top of the executive branch of power in the history of independent Slovenia. In April 2014, she also took over the Ministry of Health.

She started her career in a small textile company. In 1995, she took up employment with the Ministry of the Economy, where as part of her work in the area of small business, she participated in the setting up of the small business promotion network. In 1999, she moved to Ministry of Finance and was appointed head of Department for Agriculture, Economy and Government Offices. In 2004, she became head of Budget Directorate and continued in this role until 2011. She was responsible for the national budget, financing of local communities and drawing of European funds.

In 2005 and 2006 she was a member of the working group entitled "Harmonization and Coordination of the State’s Development Planning", with goal to synchronize Slovenia's Development Strategy, National Development Programme 2007-2013, National Reform Programme 2008-2010 (Europe 2020) and the state budget for each financial year. Coordination of the State’s Development Planning covered all areas of the so-called "development part of the budget" of the Republic of Slovenia aiming at modernization of the public sector, establishment of medium-term financial framework and increase of efficiency and effectiveness of sectoral policies. Between 2007 and 2008, she played an active role in the preparations for the Slovenian EU Council presidency. As a member of the operational working group for presidency preparation, she headed the budget sub-group.

Composed of four coalition partners, the government led by Ms Alenka Bratušek managed to restore the confidence of Slovenian and international community as well as of financial markets into Slovenia, the euro-zone Member State, strongly affected by the global financial and economic crisis. In less than a year, the Government stabilized the situation by introducing structural measures, fiscal consolidation, stabilization of the banking sector, while retaining the foundations of the welfare state. In the first year of her government’s term of office, Slovenia recorded substantial

12365/14 KS/lo 10 ANNEX DRI EN www.parlament.gv.at economic growth, a significant improvement in terms of national borrowing and started the privatization process of public enterprises. The upward trend in unemployment was stopped and youth employment has actually increased. The solid basis for restarting the economy and creating new jobs was created. At the end of May 2014 she founded her own political party, the Alliance of Alenka Bratušek and regained a place in the National Assembly at the parliamentary elections on 13 July 2014.

Alenka Bratušek started her political career in 2011, when she was elected to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia. As a deputy, she chaired the parliamentary Commission for Public Finance Control and was a member of the Committee on Finance and Monetary Policy, and the Committee on Justice, Public Administration and Local Self-Government. Main fields of her work were the budget, management of state property, the public administration and local self- government. Important element of her political activity is also a concern for gender equality and more opportunities for youth.

Alenka Bratušek was born on 31 March 1970 in Celje. Following her graduation from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Technology, she obtained a Master's degree in management of non-profit organisations from the Faculty of Social Sciences in 2006. She lives in Kranj with her partner and is proud mother of two children.

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